By the Numbers: What Happened on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
(Mr.TinDC/Flickr)
Ah, Thanksgiving. An orgy of overeating, followed by a frenzy of mindless consumerism. Is there anything more American than that?
Now the dinner leftovers are (mostly) gone and the shopping numbers are in. What happened over the biggest retail weekend of the year? Some 140 million Americans shopped till they dropped — spending around $22 billion at brick-and-mortar stores, according to ShopperTrak. But the notion of a single day of sales collapsed, as stores served up discounts before Thanksgiving and extended store hours into the holiday and beyond.
This year, many people elected to let their fingers do the shopping, spending more online and on their phones than ever before. Internet and mobile sales accounted for another $9.6 billion, per Adobe’s 2014 Digital Index. In fact, shoppers spent more than $1.2 million online during the first minute of Black Friday, according to SumoCoupon, a clearinghouse for online deals and coupons.
Bargain hunting has now become as much of a Thanksgiving tradition as pilgrims, football, and the post-dinner nap. But we’ll let the numbers tell the story:
The Yahoo Index:
Thanksgiving Holiday Sales
Amount Americans spent online on Thanksgiving Day: $1.3 billion
Amount Americans spent on Thanksgiving dinner: $2.3 billion
Number of Americans shopping on Thanksgiving Day: 25.6 million
Number of turkeys eaten: 51 million
Peak Cyber Monday shoppers, per second: 8,365
Peak Thanksgiving photos shared on Instagram, per second: 226
Average calorie count of a turkey dinner with all the trimmings: 4,500
Social media mentions of Fitbit activity tracker over holiday: 100,000
(SumoCoupon)
Amount spent online on Cyber Monday, per second: $31,242
Average increase in the U.S. national debt, per second: $31,558
Average percentage of price discounts on Thanksgiving Day: 25.2
Average amount spent per online order: $149
(Adobe)
Odds a person shopped via a smartphone or tablet: 1 in 5
Cyber Monday sales made via mobile devices: $419 million
Sales generated from social media referrals: $150 million
Number of tweets stamped with the #blackfriday hashtag: 278,000
(Black Fridays Silk)
Days Walmart’s “2014 Black Friday” sale lasted: 8
Percentage of Black Friday injuries that occur at Walmart: 66
People who’ve died in a Black Friday fracas since 2008: 7
Websites selling “I survived Black Friday” T-shirts: 7*
* At least.
(BlackFridayDeathCount)
Questions, complaints, kudos? Email Dan Tynan at ModFamily1@yahoo.com.
